Leanne M. Boehm, PhD’16, MSN’09, ACNS-BC
Assistant Professor
Boehm focuses on strategies to improve outcomes for the critically ill. She has worked extensively on reducing ICU delirium using an interprofessional evidence-based ABCDEF bundle. Her research interests include interventions to improve interprofessional protocol implementation, adherence and fidelity; ICU peer support and diary programs; and reducing post-intensive care syndrome. She is a former Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Fellow and Veterans Affairs Quality Scholar. Boehm is affiliated with Vanderbilt’s Center for Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship and the Center for Clinical Quality and Implementation Research.
Jo Ellen Holt, DNP, CEN, CCNS
Skills and Simulation
Lab Director
Holt joined the School of Nursing from Arkansas Children’s Hospital where she was responsible for process improvement projects. She has extensive clinical experience as a critical care nurse specialist and certified emergency nurse. Previously, she was a simulation instructor at Duke University School of Nursing’s Center for Nursing Discovery, where she concentrated on conducting simulations and teaching skill development to pre-licensure students. Holt will direct VUSN’s new 13-bed simulation lab and oversee skills and simulation experiences for the school’s master’s program students.
Marshay N. James, DNP’17, PMC’15, CPNP-AC, CNE
Instructor
James brings more than a decade of experience in pediatrics to her teaching in the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner — Acute Care program. Her current practice is with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where she works as an advanced practice provider in the Critical Care Division. Her research centers on pediatric delirium among critically ill children and her DNP project involved implementing a delirium screening tool in the PICU. She is also an experienced nurse educator and has taught at the University of Memphis, University of Tennessee and Pellissippi State Community College.
Melinda Johnson, DNP’18, MSN’16, FNP, AGACNP, ENP
Instructor
Johnson has spent her nursing career in acute care and emergency care settings, working in trauma and medical/surgical intensive care units, pediatric cardiac intensive care, and adult and pediatric emergency departments. She has also taught at Belmont University and served as an instructor and curriculum designer for Barkley and Associates’ Emergency Nurse Practitioner board review course. In addition to teaching in VUSN’s Emergency Nurse Practitioner specialty, Johnson is an emergency nurse practitioner at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Kathryn McNabb, DNP, PMC’14, MSN’12, BS’10, AGACNP-BC
Instructor
McNabb teaches in the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner specialty. Her background is in neurology/neurosurgery intensive care and her interests include transitioning patients from acute care to community settings after carotid surgery. As part-time faculty at VUSN, she taught advanced health assessment with emphasis on patients in the acute care practice setting. She practices as an acute care nurse practitioner at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in its inpatient cerebrovascular service and previously had a faculty appointment with Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in neurological surgery.
Lori Schirle, PhD, CRNA
Assistant Professor
Schirle combines extensive clinical care experience as a certified registered nurse anesthetist with a strong interest in genetics, health policy and health service. She plans to pair her current research — a study on hospital patient and provider factors associated with opioid prescription at discharge — with an investigation of genetic variants that influence patient pain perceptions and responses. Her long-term goal is to determine which patients can safely and effectively use opioids for post-operative pain. Schirle recently finished a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship at VUSN.
Clinton D. Leonard, MSN’14, AGACNP-BC
Instructor
Leonard specializes in the care of patients with acute burn injury. Most recently at the University of Southern Alabama’s Burn Center, he has also worked as a provider in the Burn ICU at VUMC. In addition to clinical practice, Leonard has worked to improve pre-hospital care of burn patients and has developed and taught burn courses for first responders. His current scholarship includes using virtual reality for pain control during wound care and developing peer mentorship programs for burn survivors. He teaches in the PreSpecialty program.
Marci Zsamboky, DNP’18, PMC’17, MSN’94, PMHNP/CNS-BC, CNE
Assistant Professor
Zsamboky teaches in the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Specialty. She has more than 20 years of teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate level with various schools of nursing. She served as a consultant for the National League for Nursing, Center for Excellence, and has a long history of national committee participation with the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. Her current research interests involve assessing the implementation of a depression-screening tool in oncology clinics and the use of simulations in mental health nursing and in nursing education.